English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600
_Sis_. The man's alive agen and has
A tongue! discretion guide it; he but sent
His soule forth of an arrand; tis returnd,
Now wee shall have some sentences.
_Co_. Such are the strange varieties in love,
Such heates, such desperate coldes,--
_Sis_. No more winter, and you love me, unlesse you can command the
colepits; we have had a hard tyme on't already for want of fuell.
_Co_. I'me all turnd eares and, Lady, long to heare you,
But pressing to you doubt I am too neare you.
Then I would speake, but cannot; nought affordes
Expression, th'Alphabet's too poore for wordes:
He that knowes Love knowes well that every hower
Love's glad, Love's sad, Love's sweet--
_Sis_. And sometymes sower. Theis wordes would goe well to a tune; pray
letts heare you sing. I doe not thinke but you can make me a ioynture of
fower nobles a yeare in Balletts, in lamentable balletts; for your wit I
thinke lies tragicall. Did you make the _Ladies Downefall_[242].
You expresse a passion rarely, but pray leave
Your couplets and say something in blanck verse
Before you goe.
_Co_. Before I goe? breath not that killing language:
There is no sunne but in your eyes, and when
I once take leave of those celestiall beames
I meet with darkenes in my habitation;
Where stretch'd on sable ground I downe shall lay
My mournefull body, and with folded Armes
Heare sadder noats uppon the _Irish_ harpe[243]
And drop division with my brinish teares.[244]
_Sis_. This must be lamentable musick sure!
_Co_. But I have found an art to cure this wound,
For I with fancies pencill will so draw
Your picture in the table of my hart,
Your absence shall but like darke shadowes stand
To sett you of and see you, Lady, better
Then Love will lett me when I looke upon you.
_Sis_. Could this be true and meant, sweet sir, to me,
I should be kinder then the gentlest spring
That warms the world and makes fierce beasts so tame
And trees to swell themselves to cheerefull greene;
More jocund then the proudest quire of birds,
What ere they be that in the woods so wide
Doe sing their merry catches.--Sure he does
But counterfeit.
_Co_. Oh, now I see that Love
Is sweet as flowers in their fragrant birth,
Gentle as silke, and kind as Cloudes to Earth?
_Sis_. One rime more and you undoe my love for ever. Out upon't! pedlars
_French_[245] is a Christian language to this. I had rather you should
put me a case out of _Litleton_. They say you are a pretty Lawyer.
_Co_. Tenant[246] per la Curtesie d'Engleterre est, hon home prent feme
seisie in fee simple ou en fee taile generall, ou seisie come
heire de la taile speciall et ad issue per mesme la fame, male ou
female, oies ou wife, soit lissue apres mort ou en vie si la feme de
aie, la baron tiendra la terre durant sa vie, per la ley dengleterre.
_Sis_. Nay, here's enough a Conscience! What a Noise this confusion of
languages make; tis almost as good as a beare baiting. Harke you, Sir,
you are never like to recover me by law.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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